And Street Corner Talking
That "Wow" Moment!
So I am at my local record shop store. Retired pharmacist. Had a big collection. Decided to open a brick and mortar business. Great couple and I love going there once a week and spending my money to support them. My panacea. Anyways there is an album on his system and my ears/brain immediately tune to it and ask "Who is this"? He says the name of the band whom I have never heard of before today. I say, "Will you sell it"? He says, "Sure". I bring it home and put on my system and it is a "You have got to be kidding me moment". Wow! Weren't they outstanding! Savoy Brown is the band. "Looking In" is the album from 1971. Please chime in on your similiar experiences of discovering a sound you didn't know was out there.
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My daughter told me about 10,000 Maniacs early in their career. I told her I could never imagine listening to a group with such a ridiculous name. Then I heard Natalie Merchant sing and the rest is history. We've seen her live probably six times. It just shows how wrong you can be. I buy everything she releases. |
+++ on Savoy Brown and all their work, especially the early years with Chris Youlden. Their vinyl is well worth seeking. Simmonds latest solo acoustic CD ‘Jazzin the Blues’ is highly recommended for acoustic lovers- it’s all instrumental. My wife and I met Kim and the current band on the Rock Legends 4 cruise, an incredible fun time, a great deal and rock music ‘devotees’ from all over the world. +++ on Chris and Trixie Whitley and Pat Metheny. Seeing Pat again in April (6 or 7th time!) at Savannah Music Festival, awsome event. Saw Pat Martino twice there last year. One of my bucket list artist! |
I saw Savoy Brown in March of 1972 in St. Paul, MN. They were playing with Fleetwood Mac and Long John Baldry. For an encore, SB & FM played traditional 4-bar blues for @ least an hour and a half. No Peter Green by then, but I’m almost certain that both Kirwin and Spencer were present @ this particular concert. The concert, by the way, is missing from most databases, but searching all three bands will bring it up. They were no George Gobel mind you, but the encore was memorable. DeKay |
I was in the Record and Tape Depot in Boone, NC, in the fall of 1982, and the manager put on a new EP entitled Chronic Town by an unknown young band from Athens, Georgia, named R.E.M. It sounded like the Byrds played at 180 miles per hour. I had never heard anything like it. I was gobsmacked. They became my favorite band for about the next ten years, and I still love them today. |
Finally saw Kim Simmonds and Savoy Brown live in a small local club a couple years back. Good stuff! Been a SB fan for 40+ years. Jack The Toad is probably my favorite non live or compilation SB album. Loads of fun from start to end. Classic album cover on Looking In that first caught my eye and got me to take the SB plunge way back when. So much good stuff spread out over so many years! Don’t discount their more recent releases either. |
A guy I knew my Senior year of High School who was mentally ill (Seriously. He should have been on meds, but that wasn't common at the time), and he participated in all kinds of bad behavior (He recklessly put both our lives at risk on one occasion, the last time I would get in a car with him.). But one of them I couldn't resist taking advantage of; he would boost armfulls of LP's from the drug and variety stores that sold them back then. He invited me to pick out a bunch I wanted, which I did (Yes, I'm ashamed.). He then went into the store and brought them out under his jacket (He was fearless). He brought out a stack of LP's all right, but it was not the stack I had assembled! Amongst the LP's he boosted was The Beach Boys Smiley Smile album. It had been years since I heard one of their albums, having lost interest in them after 1964's All Summer Long. They had become extremely unfashionable in the time of Cream, Hendrix, The Grateful Dead, the doors, etc., but I listened to it anyway. Holy sh*t, what the H*ll is this?! My little teenage mind was blown!! I had by then heard some very strange music, but this was truly revolutionary, unlike anything I had heard (I wouldn't hear Stravinsky and Penderecki for a few more years ;-). So began my years-long obsession with the Brian Wilson/Smile saga. Next: I read a quote from Merle Haggard in praise of Iris Dement, but that in no way prepared me for what I would hear when I listened to her My Life, an album that changed my life. I was left speechless, an emotional wreck. My God, this is what it's all about. She is as good as Pop (non-Classical) music gets. |
@dweller - Love Chris Whitley. His daughter Trixie has done a few good things as well. As to my introduction to a band/album playing in a record store, it was Elvis Hitler’s "Disgraceland" and the track "Green Haze" which is a cover of "Purple Haze" with the lyrics from the "Green Acres" tv show theme song. First pressings in lo-rent cardboard box with sellotaped cover art: https://www.discogs.com/sell/release/1547026?ev=rb Wanghead Records. Don’t settle for the reissue. :) Store was the CBGB's record store and cafe. Never ate there. |
Similar "nailed to the floor" experience walking into a shop and hearing Metheny’s "Wichita Falls" years ago. It had just been released. First time for me hearing Metheny or Lyle Mays not to mention the album. Subsequently saw them at McCarter Theatre in Princeton NJ during the tour supporting AFWSFWF. Magical stuff. FWIW - If you like Savoy Brown’s Lookin’ In, check out Killing Floor. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_CAycS7OAsg |
